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by estaseuropano 2027 days ago
Slaughterhouse workers are among the most exploited in any country, usually recruited from the lowest paid immigrants, and while some do it for 40 years without issues - or might already arrive with their own baggage -, many end up with PTSD or other psychological issues.

See e.g. this review:

https://yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2016/01/25/a-call-to-acti...
1 comments
leipert 2027 days ago
Agreed. Really poor conditions, here in Germany they are housed really poorly, are treated badly because of loopholes in worker rights. Some of those have been closed, because this year we had major corona outbreaks in slaughterhouses.

- https://m.dw.com/en/europes-meat-industry-is-a-coronavirus-h...

- https://m.dw.com/en/germany-meat-industry-conditions/a-54033...

- https://m.dw.com/en/germanys-exploited-foreign-workers-amid-...

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Melting_Harps 2027 days ago
> Agreed. Really poor conditions,

In the US the Food Megacorps had to weigh to shut down due to COVID related incidents in order to keep their supply chains from falling apart, and make sure meat was present when everyone was panic buying or restructure; in the end they just accepted that local poor and (mainly) immigrant labour deaths are an inherent extranality and an unavoidable part of the total calculus of getting the economics of factory farming to work [0]. Some even created a betting pool on how many would contract COVID in the processing plants, it's really fucking sick but an apt reflection of the Global Food Industry as whole. [1]

Fortunately, CSA memberships and community gardens sold out in record numbers this year, which is the only thing to take solace from and I hope it persists from now on.

I've personally reduced my protein consumption significantly to last year, and really mainly ate eggs and salmon that I had frozen from last years harvest. I ate chicken once or twice every week and usually made soup from kombu/katsubushi when I used up the bones.

0: https://modernfarmer.com/2020/06/families-of-covid-19-meatpa...

1: https://www.salon.com/2020/11/21/tyson-foods-managers-bet-on...

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